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"These are some of the things that hydrogen atoms do given fifteen billion years of cosmic evolution. It has the sound of epic myth, but it is simply a description of the evolution of the cosmos as revealed by science in our time. And we, we who embody the local eyes and ears and thoughts and feelings of the cosmos, we have begun at least to wonder about our origins -- star stuff contemplating the stars, organized collections of ten billion billion billion atoms, contemplating the evolution of nature, tracing that long path by which it arrived at consciousness here on the planet earth, and perhaps throughout the cosmos."

"Our loyalties are to the species and to the planet. We speak for earth. Our obligation to survive and flourish is owed not just to ourselves but also to that cosmos ancient and vast from which we spring!"

- Carl Sagan, in Cosmos

"The Cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be. We ourselves are made of starstuff. We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself.

"The harmony of nature -- the same laws of nature determine the fall of an apple on Earth, the flight of an interplanetary spacecraft and the stately dance of galaxies billions of light years distant. The same chemical elements, the same laws of quantum mechanics apply everywhere in the Cosmos. These regularities are described by a mathematics as elegant and precise as a partita for solo violin by J.S. Bach.

"There are a hundred billion galaxies and a billion trillion stars. We witness a Cosmos resplendent with beauty and perhaps rippling with life -- an awesome reminder of the power and subtlety of the laws of nature and the triumph of cosmic evolution.

"These contemplations of the Cosmos stir us -- looking outward to the grandest of mysteries returns us to ourselves. As our understanding deepens , so does our awe.

"Science is a collective enterprise that binds the generations in an ongoing venture to discover the nature of the Universe. We embody the local eyes and ears and thoughts of the Cosmos. Our obligation to survive is owed not just to ourselves, but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring.